Secrets Shared
by Broadway's Next Baby
Summary: A video camera has rested on the couch for the past three days, and a blonde man intends to put it to good use. Will he be able to reveal everything before it's too late? Warnings- major character death, and heavy Marker- don't like, don't read. R&R please! Rated T for language and content.
1. Chapter 1

**Secrets Shared**

**A/N: Hi, everyone! My name is Margaret, and this is my first published RENTfic. I would appreciate both constructive criticism and encouragement, not sure how good this is. I plan to make this about five chapters, and updates will probably be infrequent, as I'm busy with school and music (we have a huge variety show coming up). However, I'd love to know what you think! R&amp;R please, reviews will make me happy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own RENT, all characters belong to the great, and sadly late, Jonathan Larson. RIP**

A blonde man sits on a tattered, worn couch whose better days had been before the man and his friends had bought it. The man has seen better days, too: he looks like he has lived a thousand lifetimes despite being not yet thirty. His breath comes out in rattles and his face is tear-stained.

A camera rests beside him, where it has been for the past three days, untouched. The Bohemian looks at it, as if noticing it for the first time, then winces. Seeing brings on a painful flood of memories. Despite this, he picks up the camera and turns it on. He has no trouble using it: he was taught by the best. He knows there is plenty of empty film in it, because the last time it was used, a new roll was put in. This is good. He doesn't know how long he'll need.

He lies down and sets the camera on his chest, but moves it quickly to the couch. The added weight makes it even harder to breathe. He turns it off so he doesn't waste battery.

The blonde man slowly staggers over to a small table where the camera's tripod lies. Part way there, though, a coughing fit forces him to settle on the floor and catch his breath. From there, he looks around the cheap loft he and his boyfriend share- _no, shared_, he corrects. It seems to speak of the terrible grief he has been feeling for the past week and a half. The sky is gray with the promise of rain, and it gives the loft a gloomy tone. Everything in the room, besides the floor and the couch, is covered in a thin layer of dust, giving it an abandoned look. He looks down at himself. The clothes he wears are stained, rumpled, and smell like barf, due to his inability to make it to the bathroom in time on multiple occasions. He has lost a lot of weight as well. Despite the coaxing of his friends, who come over to check on him every day, he hasn't eaten much lately. What he has comes back up within a few hours.

He's glad he can't see himself from the neck up. Considering the state of his clothes, he can't imagine how the rest of him looks. He hasn't slept for days. The pain and the crushing sadness have prevented sleep from coming. The majority of his day he spends crying or sobbing, coughing, throwing up, taking medicine, and trying to get his breathing under control. When his friends come over, he says as little as possible. Talking hurts.

The blonde man hasn't bothered with personal hygiene either. He expects his hair is a mess. What's the point of keeping clean, though, when he can't escape anything? His sickness, pain, and grief hang around him like an iron shroud he can't remove. He hasn't gone anywhere lately or done much of anything. Today, though, the Bohemian is going to change that. He's going to reveal things he's kept inside for years.

He stands up agonizingly slowly and makes his way to the table with a newly found confidence. Although his speed is just as slow as before, having a sense of purpose gives the Bohemian some much-needed strength. Eventually, he reaches the tripod, which he carefully picks up, as if it could break with the slightest wrong move, or like it's a living thing, mortal and deserving of care.

He remembers the last time it was used. It was also the last time the camera was used, and the last good day he and his boyfriend had together. Everything fell apart the next day. It all happened so fast, it ended too soon. Nothing could fix things now, though. The blonde man sighs heavily, not attempting to mask his sadness. How was he to know it would be their last day together? If he had, he would have captured every moment of it.

He begins to make his way back to the couch slowly, tripod in hand, when he suddenly stops, and staggers over to the drawer in the kitchen where the writing supplies is kept. He takes out a pencil, and, unable to find a sheet of paper without some note scribbled on it, picks up a piece of manuscript paper. He swallows hard. It contains the words to a song he's tried to forget twice, but the tune still comes back to him, along with a flash of memories from a Christmas Eve seven years ago. A songwriter holding a young girl's hand, telling her how much she meant to him. The girl almost dying in his arms. The guitarist sobbing into her chest, begging her not to leave him. Her sitting up, shaking, telling the people gathered in the same loft as the one the Bohemian is standing in now that a friend steered her back to life. The songwriter crying with happiness, and holding her close. The young girl seeming well again, then dying on New Year's Eve with a ghost of a smile left on her lips only for the young man holding her the same way as he had when he thought she had died the first time. It was the first time he had tried to forget, yet it still causes the blonde man to collapse against the counter in pain, the memories too much to handle.

The second time was a week and a half ago. He never has liked goodbyes. When everything was falling apart, a desperate songwriter had sung it to his boyfriend. One of them had left the other behind. The Bohemian has tried to forget it again, but the words will not leave his head. They haunt him, everything about them reminding him of things that cannot be changed.

He begins to hum the song, but is forced to stop when his throat begins to hurt. His voice is not what it used to be, the pneumonia, among other things, making him too sick to sing anymore, and he decides he needs to save his voice as much as possible if he's going to make it through what he wants to do.

The blonde man flips the manuscript paper over so he doesn't have to see the song and picks up the pencil, which he dropped on the floor. He carefully carries them and the tripod to the couch. Setting the pencil and paper on the couch, he sets up the tripod and camera like he was taught, so that he will be able to be seen from his place on the couch. He presses record, then goes to sit down, looking at the clock as he moves.

"February twelfth, two thirty PM, Eastern. . ." He cuts off. His voice is just as ragged as his breathing, and he can already tell this isn't going to be easy. "Oh, what the hell's the point anymore? You've gone and left me, and there's nothing I can do to bring you back!"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry that this update took so long! I have been incredibly busy with Cabaret (my junior high's variety show) and didn't have time to sit down and write until yesterday. I can't tell you when the next chapter will be ready, probably not for at least a week. I promise it will be sometime in the next month. I hope you like this chapter! R&amp;R, please, reviews make me happy!**

**Also, thank you to GondorCalling and Rent-Fanfictions for the reviews- I know I already told you this, Kris, but you're kind of my RENTfic idol. If you haven't read her stories (I'd be surprised) check them out, they're fabulous!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own RENT (I rent it! XD), all characters belong to the great, and sadly late, Jonathan Larson. RIP**

There truly wasn't anything the blonde man could do to bring his boyfriend back. He'd gone somewhere there was no coming back from, and the only way for him to be reached was to make the ultimate sacrifice. It was still hard to think about.

"Having you. . . gone has been the hardest thing I've ever lived through, which is saying a lot, as we both know. We've been through a lot together, you and I, and I know it was hard for you to leave me behind. What I wonder is, are you thinking of me, wherever you are now, or am I just a blip on your radar right now?" He hated to admit it, but jealousy was one of the things he was feeling now. _Why are you jealous?_ he scolds himself.

"You're happy now, right? You're in a better place, I know these past few months have been hard on you. They've been hard for me, too. Illness is difficult, especially when it's a question of life and death. God, this is so hard to talk about, not just because every word hurts my throat. I still can't believe it happened. Why the hell did this have to happen to you? There are so many people who deserve it so much more than you did. I love you so much, don't think for a second that will ever change. I know that my time is running out, I'll be lucky to have a few days. It was never meant to happen this way. God, AIDS wasn't supposed to hold you down, you were supposed to live a long life. A long life with _m-me_. Instead, y-you're d-dead!" By this point, the Bohemian is sobbing heavily.

"There, I said it after a week and a half! You're dead!" he cries, tears streaming down his face in earnest. "Why did it have to be you? If you hadn't gone out in that snowstorm to get food. . . Okay, I'll admit there are a dozen different scenarios where something like this could have happened, but I'm still holding myself responsible. It was bound to happen at some point, but why now? Why did you have to get sick only a year after we got together?" He begins to breathe heavily, out of control. He curls up, shaking and wheezing, but soon remembers what he must do, and slowly, he gets his breaths under control.

"Sorry babe," he laughs bitterly. "It's still a fresh enough wound that little things will trigger the tears. Anyways, I'm not just filming this to grieve, although that is part of the reason. The major reason is there is something I have to tell you- well, a lot of things. Where do I even start? Okay, I think I know. I'll start with the day you moved in. When Benny brought you here- God, I hate him sometimes, but this was one time I'll never stop thanking him for. I knew there was something different about you from the other boys he'd brought in- they would move out within months, you probably remember some of the earlier ones like Adam and Steven.

"You had on this brave face, one that I know you put on a lot of the time- sometimes for my sake, sometimes for the sake of keeping others happy. You had it on a lot before you died, too. You probably don't know it, but that first day, and every time after that, I saw through that to how vulnerable you always feel- even when you don't choose to show it. And sometimes, yes, I did blow up about how you wore it so you were numb to the outside world. However, I know that being numb and detached made you feel comfortable, so I ignored it most of the time.

"Anyways, you had this adorable conflicted personality: part of you was trying to act brave, the other was scared as hell. I was just as scared, if not more scared, when I moved in, so you weren't alone. It was obvious that you were new to New York, God knows how Benny found you, probably in Central Park or something. Although I didn't realize that I found your personality adorable at the time, there was one thing I knew for sure: I wanted to take care of you, and somehow I knew you would become my best friend. God, if only I knew how right I was." He sighs, stopping for a moment to collect his thoughts and reminisce on the past.

"How did things change so quickly? Before April, I could have sworn that it was always going to be you, me, Benny, and Collins, sharing everything, and everything was going to be perfect. Collins had a steady job, and we were all happy in love- sure, it didn't tend to last, but we had each other, and that was what mattered. Maureen came, and she added even more laughter to the loft, which never seemed gloomy, despite how shitty it was. Sure, there were problems, and finding out Collins was diagnosed with HIV was shocking, to say the least, but for the most part, we were happy. Then, that gig changed everything. She showed up, and soon the heartfelt songs and natural laughter were replaced with hypodermic needles, going out to get one last hit before nightfall, and being high in general, the laughter now artificial. The Roger then wasn't the Roger we once knew, and it was frightening for both of us." He shudders. "That's a close third for worst periods of time in our lives, in my opinion, at least. Before that comes withdrawal, and then. . . _this_. Somewhere in there comes finding April dead, and the diagnosis, those were pretty awful points, too."

The Bohemian coughs, chesty and painful. "Oh, god," he sighs, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm so sorry I put you through all of my shit, Marky."

**A/N: Did you see Roger as "the blonde man" coming? I'm sorry for the cliffhanger, but I have to do _something_ to keep you reading! Also, sorry if there's anything slightly OOC with Mark or Roger, but this is my story, I can make them however I want.**


End file.
